CDC: Nearly One-Third of Injury Deaths Occur at Home

WEDNESDAY, July 11, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Just under one-third of deaths from all causes of injury occur in the person's home, according to a QuickStats report published in the July 6 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Holly Hedegaard, M.D., from the CDC in Atlanta, used mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System to assess the causes of injury death that occurred in the decedent's home.

In 2016, the total number of deaths by all injury types, including unintentional injuries, suicides, homicides, deaths of undetermined intent, and deaths attributable to legal intervention, was 231,991. The five most common injury types were poisoning (68,995 deaths; includes both drug overdoses and non-drug intoxications, like carbon monoxide), firearm (38,658 deaths), suffocation (18,924 deaths), fall (35,862 deaths), and motor vehicle traffic (38,748 deaths).

"More than half of the deaths attributable to poisoning (52 percent) occurred in the home," Hedegaard writes. "Approximately 44 percent of deaths from firearms and suffocation occurred in the home."